The Man Box is the first study that focuses on the attitudes to manhood and the behaviours of young Australian men aged 18 to 30. It involved an online survey of a representative sample of 1,000 young men from across the country, as well as focus group discussions with two groups of young men. This study is modelled on research in the United States, United Kingdom and Mexico that was released by Promundo in 2017 (Heilman, Barker, Harrison, 2017). The Man Box is the set of beliefs within and across society that place pressure on men to act in a certain way. Our study explored how young men encounter the Man Box rules in society and internalise them personally by asking their views on 17 messages about how a man should behave. These 17 messages were organised under seven pillars of the Man Box which are: self-sufficiency, acting tough, physical attractiveness, rigid gender roles, heterosexuality and homophobia, hypersexuality, and aggression and control. We also looked at the influence of agreement with the Man Box rules on different areas of young men’s lives, including health and wellbeing, physical appearance, relationships, risk-taking, violence, and bystander behaviour.

The Man Box is alive and well in Australia

We found that social pressures around what it means to be a ‘real man’ are strong in Australia, and impact on the lives of most young men from a very young age. Two thirds of young men said that since they were a boy they had been told a ‘real man’ behaves in a certain way. The findings here are quite clear – young men see the rules of the Man Box being communicated and reinforced throughout society; particularly those related to acting strong, being the primary income earner, and not saying no to sex. Our findings correspond with those from the US, UK and Mexico. The pressures relating to being a man are everywhere in society and are reinforced and influenced by young men’s closest relationships – families, partners and friends. It is clear that there is a difference between how young men perceive these pressures and their personal agreement with them. Our study showed that young men held more progressive views on what it is to be a ‘real man’ than what they believe society is telling them. Looking at the personal views of young men, there was not one Man Box rule that a majority of young men agreed with, and over three quarters of the young men disagreed with the rules on hypersexuality, rigid household roles, and the idea that men should use violence to get respect.

However, there is a substantial minority (averaging around 30 per cent) of young men who endorse most of the Man Box rules. Of particular concern are high levels of personal endorsement of rules that indicate gender inequitable views, and control of women. On several pillars of the Man Box, we found young men more strongly reject overt manifestations (like violence and sexism) while more subtle norms have higher levels of endorsement. It is important to note the possibility that greater numbers of young men may comply with these norms in their everyday lives than they let on in the survey when asked of their personal views.